what was the final U2 album you bought?

wau it's been over 20 years since I bought a U2 album

this is not "No Line on the Horizon" by U2 doesn't count either, alas

AB was the last and only one I purchased, used, about 15 years ago

the only U2 album i've ever purchased was all that you can't leave behind, when it came out. i was new to the popular music scene at that point and heard that U2 was a prominent name in the biz

The only two I own are not an option in the poll:

Million dollar hotel soundtrack (kind of qualifies as a U2 album) and the best of compilation 1980-1990: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_1980–1990

i have never purchased a u2 album

iirc All That You Can't Leave Behind was a decent album but I had no desire to own it

I bought a copy of zooropa for a dollar a couple years ago. It's also the only u2 album I've bought.

hola!

Never purchased

actually I'm now trying to remember if I ended up with a copy of Zooropa; I don't think so but... maybe?

xp envious ross

i love WAR but i inherited my dad's copy so that doesn't count

all that you can't leave behind, at chicago's virgin megastore, day of release (with the bonus tracks!)

Bought Achtung Baby on cassette when it came out. Loved the first 45 seconds of "Zoo Station." Everything after that was a disappointment. Have never looked back.

Pop, but I was never much more than halfway on the bus (had only bought the previous two proper U2 albums before that and wasn't exactly crazy about any of them).

I really dug 'Numb' and 'Hold Me, Thrill Me...' and kept being disappointed that none of the rest of their stuff really reached those heights.

not got the new one yet, but i will.
hence the answer is SOI.
and i love it.
not as good as zooropa of course, very few albums are.

Zooropa. I made the best choice.

The last one for me was the atomic bomb one. I thought it was half decent, but haven't listened to it since '04. Hated Songs if Innocence so I'm probably done with the band. I still like their earlier stuff for the most part.

Zooropa.

I bought them all up to and including The Joshua Tree but that last one was more out of some daft sense of loyalty rather than any real ongoing enthusiasm for their music.

In my late teens I bought from Joshua back to Blood Red. Then I heard Rattle and Hum and went back to The Jesus and Mary Chain and Cocteau Twins.

tape of JT

Atomic Bomb, which I still think isn't abysmal.

Yes, I remember your quote on the sticker

I think the first one I bought was Joshua Tree, like probably the majority of people. The last one I bought was Zooropa.

https://i2.wp.com/gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Mark-Wahlberg-Shock-and-Confused-Look.gif?ssl=1

"I Think This Isn't Abysmal...?"

A few years ago I got the "Magazine Edition" of NLOTH for maybe a quarter (certainly <$1) from the Fry's discount bin.

first i bought was 'under a blood red sky' and the last was 'pop'

i was working in a record store when 'all that you can't leave behind' came out and all i can remember about it is bono endlessly crooning new york new york new york. a better lyric than any to be found on the latest record, i'm told

I think the first one I got for free was "Pop," but before that I had purchased some version of all of them save "October." If I ever did buy "October," then "October" was last. "Blood Red Sky" was first.

Rattle & Hum. Caught the bus to the local record store lunchtime in school on the day it came out.

Only U2 record I've purchased since was the 12" of Lemon with the Morales/Oakenfold remixes on.

Soundtracks on vinyl

First one I bought was The Joshua Tree on cassette. I have a free copy of the new one on CD coming in the mail, but I'm gonna throw down some "coin" for the vinyl version. I also bought Songs of Innocence.

Bought Boy, got a promo of October, taped my roommate's copy of War, didn't enough for The Unforgettable Fire to own it in any form, got off the bus...

I bought HOW TO DISMANTLE, but I don't remember ever listening to it. Never bought another after that.

I bought some singles..

The double packs from "Fire" on, and "A celebration", plus the limited "Pride" which I think had the Hannet versions of the "11 o clock" single.

No albums

Last one I bought was achtung baby but didn't play it much as I was over them.

latest i own is pop but all that you can't leave behind is probably the last that's worth listening to

Zooropa, and in retrospect it's the best too.

'Pop' for sure. Fool me once!

i don't understand how people genuflect before brian eno but are too good for U2

Nah, I did lend an Eno album, it was hmmmmm except for one track but that just sounded like 'Trains and boats and planes'

I do like 'Seven Deadly Fins' though.

Man it's weird. U2 is now reaching REM levels of contempt witht the kids.

Think U2 are even worse off w/ kids. Finding a band taking up valuable mb's on their phones didn't help.

Eh, at the very least the band still tours and sells out arenas and stadiums, so their visibility is high. REM, there's no reason to know them at all, if you're a kid/young.

i have never purchased a u2 album

Think U2 are even worse off w/ kids.

They always were, tbh, even during the '90s. R.E.M. may not have known precisely when to knock it on the head, but they judged it a damn sight better than U2 have.

Isn't every U2 tour like the most successful in the history of the world?

i don't understand how people genuflect before brian eno but are too good for U2

lolz

xpost Well, REM didn't even try to appeal to young folks after a point. U2, one of the reason many (I) jumped ship is that the band started to try too hard to stay popular/relevant, which of course is not really how that works. I have friends who saw the Joshua Tree redux tour, and they said there were in fact young, or at least younger, people, and they were kind of eh about the Joshua Tree section, but went nuts for songs like Beautiful Day. Which of course is, what, almost 20 years old now? That song/album was designed to catapult the band back into the spotlight, and it worked, but never again quite like that.

I do think the band means well, and tries to have it both ways - interesting and popular at the same time - but like latter era Stones they have a pretty limited tool box. Edge is sort of backed into the same corner at Keith Richards, in a way, the key to their sound but not a force for change. And Larry is just as much the stodgy purist curmudgeon as Charlie, Bono the indefatigable ship that keeps things sailing, like Mick. 'Course, I like the last couple of Stones albums a lot more than the last few U2.

I don't think R.E.M. ever set out to calculatedly appeal to any "audience" in particular - not even their own audience. I think they did what they did, and were thankful that people liked it. There was always far more of an element of "this is our career" about U2, whereas with R.E.M. it was more "this is our hobby that we're lucky to have as a job" ... R.E.M.'s post-Automatic for the People career path would have looked a lot different if they approached being in a band the same way U2 did.

As far as the show I was at I don't think it's that true that the younger crowd wasn't down w/the JT songs unless you're talking about the typical non-hardcore fans of any age not going nuts for Mothers of the Disappeared or Red Hill Mining Town.

The two bands aren't especially comparable. You don't get to be as big as REM by approaching your career as some sort of a hobby btw.

All That You Can't Leave Behind of course was a conscious decision to shed the "electronica" elements of the Achtung Baby up to Pop period - it was painted as being some sort of "back to basics" approach, but 'Beautiful Day', with its drum machine and highly effected piano chords, really doesn't sound much like the first two U2 albums. Nevertheless, it gave U2 a huge hit when the last album hadn't delivered one, but Zooropa and Pop were hardly slips into obscurity.

Tom, can you perhaps enlighten me as to just how Out of Time was in any way a logical career move designed to break R.E.M. through to the masses and shift mega amounts of units?

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove? That U2 are some sort of corporate rock monster and REM are really the Pastels?

There's nothing to prove - that U2 were more calculated in their career moves than R.E.M. were is painfully obvious.

Oh here we go again, tne Master of the Bleedin' Obvious is here to tell us how the world turns.

Then why were you asking me what I was trying to prove? Btw, Pot I'd like you to meet Kettle.

Yes Shiny Happy people and KRS guesting on radio song were not in any way pop moves

I mean there's a reason that REM is REM and not Guadalcanal Diary or Pylon or the dBs

and 'Shiny Happy People' was different in what way to 'Stand', 'Pop Song 89', 'Orange Crush', 'The One I Love', 'Fall On Me' and the many "pop" songs that R.E.M. had put out prior to it?

Was KRS One selling millions of records worldwide? Were The B-52's world-shaggingly massive?

Please go away.

I mean, it's hard to think of Out of Time as an album deliberately crafted to be a unit shifter or to capture the zeitgeist or whatever, unless you think that the band were holed up one afternoon in a meeting with Bertis Downs and Jefferson Holt and they were all like "I think mandolins are, like, really in this year... and let's not tour!" ... "Yeah, boys, sounds like a plan! See you on the charts!"

You're not wanted here.

^ Huh. I didn't realise The Mighty Wah! was gonna appear in this thread.

Yes in America Cosmic Thing was 4x platinum, the 9th best selling album of the year and spawned multiple singles

Anyway, to steer this thread back to what this thread should be about, the last one I bought that All That You Can't Leave Behind - I heard the others (apart from the new one) and didn't think they were worth owning.

Stand was also designed to be pop out and REM were perceived as very careerist in comparison to their American college rock peers

How is, say "With You or Without You" more or less contrived than"Losing my Religion"? They are both good songs that got popular

America =/= The World!

Although Cosmic Thing is a great example of an album that really was designed to be a unit shifter, 'Love Shack' and 'Roam' hardly led to a spectacularly commercially successful career - I don't recall the last B-52's sell out stadium tour! They weren't that huge in the scheme of things.

'With or Without You' built on a tried and tested formula that had been working well for U2 up to that point, nobody could have ever expected that 'Losing My Religion' would be as big as it was.

No Line, but in my defense I waited until I found that and Atomic Bomb used.

Xpost you are thick as pigshit

The B-52's mainly went through their career making the music they wanted to make without pandering to any particular "audience", instead they happened to cultivate an audience that liked what they did. Cosmic Thing was the one and only time they deliberately crafted a record that was designed to be a commercial success, but while 'Love Shack' was a big hit, it did not lead to lasting success, and nor did it lead to the band becoming as huge as an R.E.M. or a U2.

R.E.M. were already quite a successful band prior to them getting Kate Pierson in for a couple of tunes, which had probably very little to do with why Out of Time became a huge seller and their worldwide - that was mostly down to 'Losing My Religion' which was unexpectedly huge and in no way the type of track that anyone in 1991 would have pointed to and said "that was deliberately crafted to produce a hit" ... but then, neither is most of the rest of the album.

Unless, of course, you think they were listening to a playback one night with Bertis Downs, Jefferson Holt, Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker, and they were going "Oh my fucking god, we've made our Thriller" while listening to 'Belong' ...

you keep having the same fantasy

Wait, is the argument that Losing My Religion isn't a pop song because of the mandolin?

No, but that should be obvious.

turrican have you ever heard the big kansas hit "dust in the wind"?

I'd say there are fewer people who have never bought an REM album here.

(I haven't)

Unless, of course, you think they were listening to a playback one night with Bertis Downs, Jefferson Holt, Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker, and they were going "Oh my fucking god, we've made our Thriller" while listening to 'Belong' ...

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Saturday, December 9, 2017 9:25 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jfc do you have a version of this bullshit non-argument for every thread? "I suppose you think Seth Putnam and the Earache Records guys were sitting around thinking 'Fuck yeah, the topical satire of "Jack Kevorkian is Cool" is gonna take us to the top!'"

Yeah, nobody is suggesting that Anal Cunt were ever making U2-style career decisions. Like, literally nobody.

Go from this place.

rem's song "losing my religion" was a bold avant-garde recording in a world of acoustic hair metal hits like guns & roses' "patience"

It really was. The 12-tone string arangement, the ten minute drone outtro, the still shockingly sexually explicit lyrics. Who could have thought it would become a hit?

By use of the mandolin, an obscure instrument hitherto only known to certain hill tribes in Upper Patagonia, REM threw a gauntlet down and challenged their contemporaries to follow them into the bold, frightening new world of the musical avant garde.

Except that nobody, especially not me, said that 'Losing My Religion' was "avant-garde"? Not that not being "avant-garde" automatically means it was obviously going to be a huge success or was designed to be.

Yeah, nobody is suggesting that Anal Cunt were ever making U2-style career decisions. Like, literally nobody.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Saturday, December 9, 2017 10:00 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that...wasn't the point. The point is that every time you start arguing with anyone about a band you do this "I suppose you think [ridiculous fantasy that the poster never stated]" thing, while you boldly state cold hard facts that are definitely not just your subjective opinion.

If it's ridiculous fantasies you're looking for, check out the posts just above you where all of a sudden the term "avant-garde" enters the conversation.

tbf they might as well meet you on your level

Yeah, well wake me up when they get there.

Even more commendable as all of REM were still working in various menial professions - dishwasher, road sweeper, au pair etc - this being the only way they could finance their ever more daring assaults on musical tradition in the West.

Anyway, to attempt to once more steer the conversation away from people going "wah!" ...

I'd say there are fewer people who have never bought an REM album here.

(I haven't)

― Mark G, Saturday, December 9, 2017 5:47 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wonder what the results would be if this same poll was ran for R.E.M.? I expect some went off them after Monster or at the very latest Reveal (if you're from Europe) ... Some probably went off 'em as early as Fables ...

Stipe, 31, added, "We will never sell out to the Man. No way, I ain't Bono. We wanna be free. We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna build a song on a mandolin riff and have a good time. That's what we're gonna do, we're gonna have a good time, we're gonna have a unlikely hit, garnering heavy airplay on radio as well as on MTV and VH1 due to its critically acclaimed music video. Attica! Attica!".

anyways the unforgettable fire totally rules

Turrican, we're not actually having a good faith discussion with you, we're making fun of you. Know it can be hard to ascertain when it's done subtly.

I swear AC is a band that only exists to be mentioned in "edgy" ilm posts

Yes, but they became that way without calculated career moves, so it's okay

REM were always bad at making their music sound more radical than it actually was...you knew more or less what you were getting, slight deviations aside, and success hinged on the quality of the tunes (as w/ all stages of their career)

Document = bit louder
Green = acoustic stuff
Out Of Time = more of that

War

Turrican, we're not actually having a good faith discussion with you, we're making fun of you. Know it can be hard to ascertain when it's done subtly.

― Frederik B, Saturday, December 9, 2017 6:34 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, it's more that you're doing it painfully badly. Tom in particular is looking particularly sad at this stage.

lol

anyways the unforgettable fire totally rules

― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, December 9, 2017 6:33 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Damn right, it does! Both the album and the song (which is one of my most favourite things they've ever done)

it's one of the best things eno's ever been involved in, talking heads, fripp, roxy, coldplay, laraaji, you name it

hell yeah

... REM, "Losing My Religion".

Well, I'd definitely take it over anything Talking Heads and Coldplay have done, without a doubt!

What I will say, though, is as calculated as some of U2's career decisions may have been, more often than not (and certainly up to 'Beautiful Day') they delivered the goods musically, which is the most important thing. Their '90s reinvention would have looked like a joke if they hadn't made albums of the calibre of Achtung Baby and Zooropa.

The only U2 I play these days is The Unforgettable Fire EP with Love Comes Tumbling.

Fire more Lanois than Eno. Eno (and Flood) role subsequently upped, iirc. Lillywhite stays involved too!

i might have admitted i think the joshua tree is one of the best things eno's ever done (bowie stuff included!) but i'm not fishing for a ban today

I think a case could be made that the first few minutes of the first song mark some sort of apotheosis of what he started with The Big Ship and An Ending Ascent, especially impressive in the context of a rock song. As lore has it that transition alone took hours and hours in the studio, and Eno famously almost deleted the entire track.

AB was the last and only one I purchased, used, about 15 years ago

^^ same but about 18 years ago

wait i think i def owned JT, UF and War prob at one point. all bought used around the same time iirc

i'm even more affected by the enoisms in "mothers of the disappeared" -- that song is peak brian. saying this as someone whose favorite ever album on some days alternates between another green world and before and after science

xpost

if they'd let him run with it and take the band out of the mix altogether it could've been a perfect album

ever since they first hooked up U2's work with Eno has been pretty much always excellent and has seemed to be their most confident. Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Passengers, ATYCLB, and No Line on the Horizon > Rattle & Hum, Pop, HTDAAB (he only contributed to a couple bits on there), Innocence/Experience.

at this point i actually think No Line is their best post-Zooropa album. they sound pretty confident and assured and their plan going in isn't as bland as the one they executed for ATYCLB.

co-sign about the quality of No Line. the title track, "magnificent", and "unknown caller" are three of my all-time favorite U2 songs

by "bland" re: ATYCLB i mean they didn't really take many chances, they really did go in trying to become a huge relevant arena act again and they pulled it off. it's a very good and (like other Eno productions) confident album but it's not especially interesting to me even as a big U2 fan.

Everything post Zooropa is inlistenable to me. They were the first band I was a "fan" of, as a kid. The satire and cynicism of Pop never gelled with me. Zooropa is still by far their best record imo. And it's the one record they threw together in between tours. Makes u think.

i disagree 100 percent that no line is better than pop

i'm actually agnostic on whether it's better, if i really had to rank their post Zooropa albums i'd put No Line and Pop in the top two slots. i wasn't thinking with that ranking there...but without a doubt No Line is far better than anything else from the 2000s they've released.

Last one I bought was Pop, and I still think its high points (“Mofo,” “Please,” maybe “Miami”) are as good as anything they’ve done. And none of the low points are as bad as the low points on R&H or TUF.

I listened to ATYCLB and found it mostly formulaic. As for everything after that, I found the lead singles (“Vertigo,” “Get On Your Boots”) too one-dimensional and self-consciously “We’re back! With some power chords! And...um...tr-...triumphant!” to bother with the rest of the album. Zooropa is my fave, maybe tied with Boy.

You're probably the first person I've ever come across that's described 'Miami' as a high point!

The only U2 record I ever paid for was the Fly cassingle.

It's no secret iirc

i enjoy “the playboy mansion” so anything can happen imo

Playboy Mansion is a legit good song

if I 'paid for it' via a columbia CD club voucher, does it count for having been paid for? (i didn't actually pay for it).

I've never owned a U2 album.

hardly led to a spectacularly commercially successful career - I don't recall the last B-52's sell out stadium tour!

because playing stadiums in 2017 is the only measure of commercial success in 1989

I saw the B-52s play an arena in Sydney 19 years after Cosmic Thing. They played the same venue in February this year, nine years after I saw them, on a side show from a tour of outdoor venues double-headlining with Simple Minds, and they played 2/5 of the Cosmic Thing tracklist.

Six months after that, they played an 8000-capacity outdoor venue a couple of hours from where I'm typing now, in California.

tru, circa-1989 B52's were world class, i tell ya, WORLD CLASS.

they had hits.

This thread led me down a deep dark tunnel of b-sides and deep album tracks I didn’t remember. Then I was able to pull myself together and escape, thank God

For myself? I think I may have bought Achtung Baby. Or maybe it just sort of drifted into my ownership; I forget. Probably still have the cassette in the attic. Nothing since.

My wife is a longtime U2 fan (though she would hasten to note that her U2 fandom sticks out as an anomaly vis-a-vis the rest of her taste). I think I bought HER an AB and/or Rattle & Hum box set reissue thingy, but that shouldn't count.

My love of U2 can be distilled as this:
Whenever a jam was going shitty i would throw in a nod to Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Ripe for a jam
That one

Sorry I just don't get why people like U2

Because they used to make great records?

Yeah no doubt some of their stuff is great; sorry for the hyperbole

It occurs to me, because of this thread, that U2 are the most famous gap in my collection. (Like I sometimes keep tabs on the most famous film I've never seen--right now, probably Metropolis. ~4,000 albums, zero from U2. I briefly had a promo copy of The Joshua Tree when it came out, but ended up giving it to a then-girlfriend. CDs came in soon after, never picked up another album, never bought a CD.

I like a few songs, but I get quite enough of them on the radio, where they took over from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as the house-band on the classic-rock station here.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Not sure what “a sort of homecoming” is supposed to mean or be about. Anyone know?

Sorry I just don't get why people like U2

― In a slipshod style (Ross), Sunday, December 10, 2017 6:14 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

boomer band for gen x-ers who felt like they missed the boat

paul celan: "poetry is a sort of homecoming"

While writing the 1984 album “The Unforgettable Fire,” Bono became fixated on the line from Jewish poet Paul Celan’s “Meridian” speech, “Poetry is a sort of homecoming.” This prompted him to write “A Sort of Homecoming,” but that same sentiment is evident throughout U2’s most religious music. “You don’t become an ‘artist’ unless you’ve got something missing somewhere,” Bono once said. “Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole.” In this equation, music and religion form the otherwise absent parts whose discovery make someone whole. A home is a place where everything can be understood, a place made by people so they can know and love each other. Coming home, then, is a joyful experience. . . .

http://www.thecrimson.com/column/joyful-noise/article/2012/3/27/sort_of_homecoming/

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I think "Pop" was the only U2 album I ever bought

I think I bought it b/c of the irony angle but can barely remember anything about it now, sold off long ago

Achtung baby

But I heard the following three via my parents

Only know bits of the newer ones, seems like they can still come up with decent tunes but the production kinda stinks

/Sorry I just don't get why people like U2

― In a slipshod style (Ross), Sunday, December 10, 2017 6:14 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag

But yeah it's crazy how u2 is massive and like crispy ambulance aren't superstars it's just mind boggling, isn't it?

and get this: their '90s albums were ever better. yeah, i know. how??

21 people were turned off this band by Zooropa? Okay, if you say so.

That's one way of completely reading the question wrong...

But it is plausible that some may have voted for the record that turned them off - hence why they "got off the bus" and hence why it became the "last" U2 album they bought. Unless you're saying it's implausible, in which case: LOL!

True but plausible that they heard the next album, thought that was a load of toss and never bothered with them thereafter.

The question is not about it "is plausible that some may have voted for the record that turned them off" etc. The question is "what was the final U2 album you bought".

You're a fucking moron.

In both cases this is indeed true - and hence why I asked the question so that said people who voted for Zooropa would clarify their stance and thus generate more discussion. Sonehow, I don't quite think we're ready for the "this is how the world turns" discussion yet!

You didn't ask a question. You concluded 21 people got turned off by Zooropa.

I guess I now have to point out what a question mark looks like, where I placed it and why I placed it there. Huh, and you have the audacity to call me a moron. Although, I appreciate you resorted to it out of frustration because you ran out of things to say.

Why did you place the question mark right in front of you then answering the question?

Was gonna say, Fred, but I'd advise against getting sucked into the black hole that is "talking to Turrican"

Turrican has got to be the stupidest motherfucker that has ever written anything on this board? No doubt.

What, I'm just asking a question, not implying anything at all, don't you know what a question mark is!!!! Moron?

It's an invitation to those who voted Zooropa to clarify their stance. Guys, it really is not that difficult to comprehend. I do love it when you appear in the middle of someone else's argument though, Frederik, like some cyberspace version of Scrappy Doo - and about as much use.

If you'd read up, many people already "clarified their stance".

You're rather fond of italics aren't you? Good for you...

Yup!

So, was there anyone who voted in this poll that was turned off by the '90s stuff?

(^ for the benefit of Le Bateau Ivre, this is a question.)

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/all-218-u2-songs-ranked-from-worst-to-best.html

It's an invitation to those who voted Zooropa to clarify their stance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1RQvMPdNrc

x-post:

Fucking hell, I look forward to wading through all that!

That Vulture thing lost all credibility for me when they put Window In The Skies--one of my very favroites--in the 180s. Sad.

Bought the Wide Awake in America EP for "Bad" and then bought Zooropa and then (regret purchase) bought All That You Can't Leave Behind used on CD.

how could "lemon" be ranked lower than "discotheque"

I was one of the people for whom Zooropa was the last U2 album they bought. Liked it a lot at the time, and still do. I didn't like Pop much at all, so didn't buy it, and never had any interest in hearing anything from them after that. I don't even think it was Pop that specifically turned me off, more that I'd been uninterested in anything U2 for a few years by that time. In 1997 they seemed old and irrelevant (they were).

'Angel of Harlem' at #17!

I was one of the people for whom Zooropa was the last U2 album they bought. Liked it a lot at the time, and still do. I didn't like Pop much at all, so didn't buy it, and never had any interest in hearing anything from them after that. I don't even think it was Pop that specifically turned me off, more that I'd been uninterested in anything U2 for a few years by that time. In 1997 they seemed old and irrelevant (they were).

― dorsalstop, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 9:46 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah yeah, that makes sense! There was a gap of four years between Zooropa and Pop, which is pretty normal now for a big act, but during those four years a hell of a lot had happened.

yeah, zooropa was the last one i bought — and my tastes really changed between that one and Pop (the difference between being 13 and 17 years old). i checked out Pop via a friend and really didn't like it. here's a question: did Bono's vocals really go downhill around the mid 90s? something about them seems really bad post-Zooropa (though that may be the aforementioned taste change again).

Bono has definitely lost a significant portion of his range, but I think that started prior to Pop — there’s a couple of live things on Rattle & Hum where his voice sounds tattered compared to the studio recording, in a way that sounds like he’s forcing his voice to do something it can’t/shouldn’t.

yeah that's probably true -- i guess w/ achtung baby and zooropa, it seemed like he was developing into an *interesting* vocalist ... and I haven't heard anything very interesting from him since.

The production on Pop hardly helps in places - I get the feeling that if U2 had had more time, a lot of the vocals would have been re-recorded or comp'd differently.

For me, the problem with Pop was that their lack of follow-through/constant complaints about “we never finished it!” evidently put them off any kind of risk-taking thereafter.

It wasn’t the risk-taking that did them in, it was the half-assedness. They subsequently realized that it was easier to take a half-assed approach to making records — by sticking with a pre-Achtung Baby approach — that sounded fully-realized, even though there was a fundamental emptiness at their core.

It amazes me that they worked on Pop for over a year (begun in mid 1995, mastered in late 1996) and they'd delayed the release at least once, and they still hadn't finished it!

One of the reasons for the delay was Mullen’s back surgery. Watching pre-‘95 video, you think, “Yeah, you sit hunched over like that for 3-5 hours a day, it’s gonna fuck you up.”

But they also made an obvious mistake in booking an elaborate tour months before the album was done.

i feel like they were a bit rudderless w/o Eno on that one, after having worked with him on ever album post-War. i still think it's highly successful. It never felt like an artistic miscalculation to me, it felt more like a timing and image and audience miscalculation (similar to Songs of Innocence in that way, but more risky and a better album.)

yeah, zooropa was the last one i bought — and my tastes really changed between that one and Pop (the difference between being 13 and 17 years old). i checked out Pop via a friend and really didn't like it. here's a question: did Bono's vocals really go downhill around the mid 90s? something about them seems really bad post-Zooropa (though that may be the aforementioned taste change again).

― tylerw, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 2:22 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bono has definitely lost a significant portion of his range, but I think that started prior to Pop — there’s a couple of live things on Rattle & Hum where his voice sounds tattered compared to the studio recording, in a way that sounds like he’s forcing his voice to do something it can’t/shouldn’t.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, December 12, 2017 2:31 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's probably true -- i guess w/ achtung baby and zooropa, it seemed like he was developing into an *interesting* vocalist ... and I haven't heard anything very interesting from him since.

― tylerw, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 2:34 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually think Bono's had a fair share of good vocal work in places, and i think Pop and NLOTH are both extremely good due in part to his performance. i think w/those albums the lyrics are much, much better than anything else on the other albums post-Zooropa, and on those he tries to do more interesting things w/the vocals as well. maybe bc he's more confident w/the words? no idea.

both of those albums close w/a trio of excellent kinda odd downbeat curveballs that your "I thought Achtung Baby was weird" type U2 fans would recoil from.

i still think it's highly successful. It never felt like an artistic miscalculation to me, it felt more like a timing and image and audience miscalculation (similar to Songs of Innocence in that way, but more risky and a better album.)

there's definitely a big decline in Bono's vocals with Pop, they're one of the weakest things about it

that Vulture list is terrible, can't believe The Fly and Lemon in particular are so low

hey brimstead, i was being a moron, but it's good to bring out the passion in people's opinions..that's what ILM is all about imo

Zooropa was the most Eno of the mega-era U2 albums, spending that imperial phase capital. Pop was, I suppose, the least Eno, trying to find a new set of coattails to ride. But since then the most defining driver of U2 has been money, corporate sponsorships, tie-ins. The cynical might say, well, duh. But I remember reading that the group was far from massively profitable - I want to say the scale and ambition of the Zoo TV tour actually lost money - until the ATYCLB album and tour, when they really started to rake in the cash.

There’d a thing Bono does sometimes when singing mid 90s forward that sounds like he’s belching. I kind of like it... top of my mind he does it in ‘sweetest thing’ and ‘staring at the sun’. Need to timestamp it.

cheers Ross, no sweat, I'm always being a moron here

cheers as well mate, know the feeling

The question we need to be asking is, what happened to Howie B.? He did some cool stuff around the time. Skylab. Pop. He's on Passengers. His Music for Babies album was good, iirc.

re howie b : he introduced the band to jacknife lee basically.

not to be heard of since other than a very drab dub album with a band called casino royale.

FWIW I think Howie B's "Turn the Dark Off" album is under-rated

sorry for thread de-rail, I realise this will now turn into a 1,000-post pile-on about Howie B's calculating commercialism

i REALLY want to revisit howie b, there's gold in them trip-hop/blunted beat hills i swear

yeah there's good stuff there. Was just thinking about the Sukia album the other day!

I got off the train once Bono started climbing the rigging and thinking he was jesus, so my final purchase will be Under a Blood Red Sky. I still like Boy and a couple from October.

i REALLY want to revisit howie b, there's gold in them trip-hop/blunted beat hills i swear

dj food kinda picked up the baton for trip hop a bit ago :

http://www.djfood.org/nostalgia-3-trip-hop/

what the dickens is going on here

back on track : new U2 album arrived today.
2 listens in and i like it.
not sure it will become as big a playlister as NLOTH as i happen to really enjoy that one now, but it always takes a few spins for a U2 album to work for me.

climbing the rigging and thinking he was jesus

I have an Insufferability-of-Bono-Meter that waxes and wanes like the coming and going of the tides. For example, the atrociousness of his hairdo at Live Aid sent it down (toward "more insufferable"). Him admitting his hairdo at Live Aid was atrocious sent it a little bit up. Him then going on to say that people don't listen to the band because of his hairdo sent it back down. His affection for the Gretsch Falcon? Up. His Bono-branded Gretsch Falcon with a catchphrase on the pickguard? Down.

It's way easier for me to evaluate the band and its records if I temporarily shelve my feelings about him as a person. And U2 at its best is a pretty good rock band.

Being a U2 fan is a pretty dynamic thing.

His Bono-branded Gretsch Falcon with a catchphrase on the pickguard? Down.

Thank you. omg.

There are worse people in music than Bono.

There's few people in the world worse than Bono.

Show your working.

"Stephen Stills Stole The Gretsch Falcon... I'm Stealing It Back!"

Turrican, you may be right but the size of his personality - and the fact that he never shuts up - makes him something of an elephant in the room. Temporarily banishing him from my mind helps my ability to hear the music. But it's not easy because he is ever-present.

Show your working.

He's worse than Hitler.

Killed more people.

For some reason, I don't get the impression that Bono at the dinner table at home is the same as the Bono that appears onstage and in interviews - there's definitely an element of persona there, as if he's trying to give his fans something larger than himself.

I'll admit, it was tedious for a time when it seemed that Bono was cropping up everywhere, but that was a long time ago now.

killed more people

but he could not take their pride

there being worse people in music than him doesn't really say anything about bono's individual badness

This is a well known joke here in Glasgow.

It was the 2005 Vertigo show at Hampden Park where he didn't clap his hands, but clicked his fingers every couple of seconds and said "each time I click my fingers, a child in Africa dies"

The joke goes that he said "Every time I click my fingers, a child in Africa dies" to which some guy in the front row shouts back "Well f***** stop doin it then"

Its probably a true story. :-\

See, killed children too.

iirc there were broken bottles under their feet as well. I mean, talking about adding insult to injury.

I’m weirdly interested in the All That You Can’t Leave Behind reissue. Any bsides from that album worth hearing?

https://www.nme.com/news/music/u2-announce-album-reimagined-re-recorded-tracks-songs-of-surrender-3378104

The Edge continued to explain that most of U2’s work “was written and recorded when we were a bunch of very young men” and that the songs had changed over the years to “mean something quite different to us now”. “Some have grown with us,” he wrote. “Some we have outgrown, but we have not lost sight of what propelled us to write those songs in the first place. The essence of those songs is still in us. But how to reconnect with that essence when we have moved on and grown so much?”

He added that the band had imagined bringing their old songs into the present day and giving them “a 21st-century reimagining”. “Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version, each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are now, and particularly the singer that Bono has become,” he wrote. “I hope you like our new direction.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXd_l9RsI6A

i have never purchased a u2 album

We can't be arsed to write any new songs but we need an album/tour to keep the accountants happy so...

Bono saw Eddie Vedder singing 'One' on stage and thought 'that should be me up there covering U2 songs'

The thing is he did this in Sing 2 already! (just not with the band)

U2 and I’m thinking Bono in particular def been in full looking back phase for a few years now, since NLOTH in 2009. His recent memoir is good, but I think as a band they’ve always been served best by trying new things. Not that anyone should expect Zooropa 2.0 if they actually did try new things, but last time they did it was mostly a very good album.

I will unveil myself as a longtime fan (but I got off the bus at How To Dismantle...), and I think they should just pack it in and enjoy retirement.

U2 Stole These Songs From U2...U2 Is Stealing Them Back!

Agree with Boring. Even diehard fans are okay with their output to date, and are not really hungering for more.

U2's lawyer sends a cease and desist to U2 who then tear it up on stage, yeah. How do you like that you fuckin sell outs!?

Bono needs to do a reverse Chris Gaines

Meanwhile Adam Clayton is still trying to figure out how to remove Songs of Innocence from his iPod

I got All That You Can't Leave Behind as a gift. Pretty good record.

Is that going to be the album cover? The Pop-looking thing with (for the Edge and maybe Adam and Larry) Pop-era photos?

“On the bass, Adam Clayton, he wrote this”

Ahah I was a huge fan as a teenager circa Achtung and the last album I bought (and listened to) was Zooropa. I have no idea what’s going on with them now but just noticed in Spotify « pride » as a new song. WTF ?

i prefer the original working title, "how long must we sing these songs?"

Fair play to Bono and the lads they bring out the laffs on ILX.

I think as a band they’ve always been served best by trying new things.

Is that a roundabout way of saying they would be better if they broke up? If they're so aimless that they're re-recording their old songs and playing a pricey Vegas residency, then maybe things really have run their course.

My sister and I used to joke that U2 would end up doing a Vegas residency.

"Sunday, bloody Sunday, little girl . . . whoa whoooooooooahhh!"

Everything goes to Vegas to die.

bono's book does detail how adam was notorious at school for standing by the slops table at school and eating odd shaped potatoes and 3/4 sausages left behind in a sea of cold beans that other pupils had discarded. also once they were a successful band he still would go along the corridors of hotels picking out bits from half consumed room service meals. so regurgitating old u2 songs is a happy zone for him I guess.

I still love joshua tree and always will.

Is that a roundabout way of saying they would be better if they broke up? If they're so aimless that they're re-recording their old songs and playing a pricey Vegas residency, then maybe things really have run their course.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, January 11, 2023 2:21 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

U2 doing this kind of project feels like some end of the line shit, I know they had been working on new material but maybe this is it? I had thought it was not. idk I think the last two albums have their good qualities, one more than the other, but when they were working with Eno on NLOTH, on the tracks that weren’t the boots/comedy/crazy trio, they sounded a lot more alive. It wasn’t exactly a success critically or commercially but it was a good one imo. If they want to go this route I guess it’s cool but it strikes me as kind of pointless.

Wasn't Bono just doing interviews talking about how they were gonna put out "a real ass-kicking rock 'n' roll record"? And now they're announcing...re-recordings of their old shit? Absurd.

they're working on two other new albums right now, one is songs of ascent which was previously the title to a nloth follow-up that didn't eventuate and is supposed to be almost complete, and the other is that "fuck off rock 'n' roll album" inspired by ac/dc that it sounds like they've only just started work on.

i guess this sort of project is what happens now that they've finally accepted that the pop charts are permanently out of reach for them. idk why they didn't just release it at the same time as bono's memoir if it's supposed to be the soundtrack to it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thmcVMobt0s

i'll at least give them credit for putting in the effort to rearrange "pride" rather than just phoning in some barebones acoustic version, but it's still fairly pointless

Weird (but not surprising) for neither of their songs featuring the word “surrender” in its title to be included on this album. Both securely in the realm of deep cuts tho and not sure they really do deep cuts anymore.

Okay Edge, play U2!

i'll at least give them credit for putting in the effort to rearrange "pride" rather than just phoning in some barebones acoustic version, but it's still fairly pointless

I was waiting for it to be something more than "barebones acoustic," and yeah, after two and a half minutes it does get a little weird (in that it sounds like them imitating Primal Scream), but before that it sounds like they re-recorded it on commission, for the trailer to a Netflix teen romance. Gurgh.

Re-recording stuff is just such a coward move, letting the legacy of the songs do the heavy lifting.

they've. got. to. get themselves toGETHer.

lol, they're stuck in an album that they can't get out of (nor delete from their iTunes).

Nothing changes

on New Year's Day

ONE
WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME
STORIES FOR BOYS
11 O’CLOCK TICK TOCK
OUT OF CONTROL
BEAUTIFUL DAY
BAD
EVERY BREAKING WAVE
WALK ON (UKRAINE)
PRIDE (IN THE NAME OF LOVE)
CD 2 / LP 2: Larry
WHO’S GONNA RIDE YOUR WILD HORSES
GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY
STUCK IN A MOMENT YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF
RED HILL MINING TOWN
ORDINARY LOVE
SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN
INVISIBLE
DIRTY DAY
THE MIRACLE (OF JOEY RAMONE)
CITY OF BLINDING LIGHTS
CD 3 / LP 3: Adam
VERTIGO
I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR
ELECTRICAL STORM
THE FLY
IF GOD WILL SEND HIS ANGELS
DESIRE
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
SONG FOR SOMEONE
ALL I WANT IS YOU
PEACE ON EARTH
CD 4 / LP 4: Bono
OR WITHOUT YOU
STAY (FARAWAY, SO CLOSE!)
SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
LIGHTS OF HOME
CEDARWOOD ROAD
I WILL FOLLOW
TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE
MIRACLE DRUG
THE LITTLE THINGS THAT GIVE YOU AWAY
‘’40’’

Nothing from October, the one record that would benefit most from this boneheaded malarky.

Finally, a solo bass version of "Desire" (with the Edge telling him what notes to play)!

that version of Pride is abominable.

the last U2 album I bought was Zooropa (if passengers doesn't count). I forced myself to listen to everything after that earlier this year and it was an unpleasant experience. Unbelievable drop off in quality.

Just four guys in a room

This one really just feels like halfway between U2 unplugged and a book companion. Let’s face it if it wasn’t U2 the vitriol would be muted, this seems like a pretty standard sort of late career thing, less of a coward’s move than just sort of a looking back cliché. Bono’s health issues maybe played a part in it, prob feeling a bit nostalgic or something and I’m guessing is the primary if not almost sole navigator of this whole endeavor.

band too cowardly to remake their best song, "mofo"

Actually I don’t know if U2 is unplugged on this deal, whatever the case they’d be better served by Brian Eno kidnapping them and taking them to an abandoned island to make an album with him

lmao "WALK ON (UKRAINE)"

It's totally cowardly, it's the same reason one of the most risk-forward big rock bands retrenched and became so self-conscious about alienating their fans and/or abdicating their superstar throne. Freedom from the charts should mean freedom from expectations, but the band clearly doesn't know what it wants. We're completing a song cycle! We're doing a balls to the wall rock album! We're experimenting in Morocco! We're releasing unused material from No Line on the Horizon! Wonder if all this restless wandering has anything to do with Paul McGuinness leaving as manager in 2013. To be replaced by the guy that handles Madonna and RHCP.

"WALK ON (UKRAINE)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8wxpzTvY4

i didn't realise they wrote new lyrics for that

as a fan of their unloved later albums, this does nothing for me.
at this stage i am waiting for them to hand over their tapes to giles martin and ask him to make a mixtape of their classics a la LOVE.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a U2 fan, it’s one shouldn’t believe a word they say about whatever they’re doing next. McGuinness probably helped them focus, and Eno/Lanois probably helped them work a bit faster maybe, but those ships have sailed.

What’s disappointing obv is that up to a point they were not really at all risk-averse, yeah. They have however reached a certain age where maybe they just don’t have the ambition anymore, especially if these dudes all live in various parts of the world and are closing in on retirement age. I’ll buy this and whatever else they’re gonna do I’ll just hope to be pleasantly surprised by the next new work.

even the 4cd version where each cd has been curated by each band member ?

i suspect the 4cd edition will include a lot of acoustic versions that have the chance of ending up soundtracking a john lewis advert.

(and yeah, i hate the glut of acoustic versions of pop songs that has become a massive thing in the uk in recent times)

I mean I may wait for this to take the inevitable deep discount plunge

they should release a reggae album.

Just the title “miracle of Joey ramone” is enough to make me never want to listen to them again

even the 4cd version where each cd has been curated by each band member ?

I'm getting a flashback to the KISS solo albums.

they should release a reggae album.

― Josh in Chicago,

well, i know of one producer who loves to add a reggae groove to indie guitars/rock bands.
actually, trying to think if u2 have ever done the on-u sound thing ..
given that on-u sound remixed everyone back in the day when remixes were all the rage, hello shed 7, i dont think there was ever a connection.

In Ukraine of love

But I still haven't found what I'm Ukraine for

Ukraine in the membrane

Stuck in a Moment that Ukraine Get Out Of

Sometimes Ukraine Make it on Your Own

Ukraine Baby

The Joshukraine Tree

All That Ukraine Leave Behind

U2 will release their “back to basics” album around the same time Radiohead delivers their “Smiths-inspired” record they’ve promised for 2 decades

It’s funny how Bono said that he wanted to update/“correct” the lyrics on some of these re-recordings, but they didn’t do anything from October, the record with lyrics that were famously lost and then rediscovered decades later

Bono should redo all the lyrics in Esperanto, the universal language.

Well tonight thank god it's you instead of them

pretty ridiculous that they included more songs from the 10s than the 90s

well, those were the albums they'd been working toward their entire career, just four guys in a room at the peak of their powers, with even better yet to come.

In 1996, totally unheralded, a remake of October's "Tomorrow" was issued on an obscure compilation CD and it's absolutely incredible.

https://www.discogs.com/release/1191206-Various-Common-Ground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkJonNiGyM